'Extreme Capitalism' plan for TAFE?

The Federal Government is planning to make far reaching changes to the funding and organisation of the TAFE and VET in Australia. In summary, these changes will:

• reduce government funding allocated to vocational education and training
• increase the amount of money students will have to pay to study at TAFE
• reduce the range of courses available for students

The Federal Government is intending to use its estimated 30% share of VET funding to “reward” states for implementing a range of marketisation strategies.
These include:

• full competition for all government (federal and state/territory) VET funding between public (TAFE) and private providers, and between TAFE Institutes as well
• a significant shift of costs for training from governments to individual students, masked by the introduction of a deferred payment loan scheme (HECS)
• penalising TAFE Institutes for the funding they have received in the past for capital and infrastructure through the implementation of competitive neutrality principles

When the Howard government tried to force its industrial relations agenda on TAFE and the VET system, they used the threat of withholding federal VET funding from the states and territories to coerce them into compliance. The Rudd government is using exactly the same strategy to implement its marketisation agenda in TAFE.

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